Opinions

In the last few months I finally gave into the urge to break down a bunch of swords and examine their innards. I started off with a Cold Steel Basket Hilt, a Valiant Armoury AT303S, a Hanwei/Tinker EMSHS, a Hanwei Renaissance Side Sword, and a Windlass American Revolutionary War saber.

(Note: Cold Steel is open about sourcing their Western style blades from India, and there are reasonable grounds to believe that either Windlass, or a Windlass subcontractor, is one of the sources for Cold Steel swords, in this case, the basket hilt.)

All of these swords use threaded tangs. The Cold Steel basket hilt, Valiant Armoury and Hanwei/Tinker used a variety of nut, separate from the pommel, to screw everything together. The Hanwei side sword used a straight up screw-on pommel. The Windlass used a nut, screwed onto the tang, and then peened.

Each of these swords felt solid and well put together. All of them but the Hanwei side sword were used for cutting (water filled bottles) and all held together well. The nut on the Valiant Armoury sword loosened a time or two until I put a drop of nail polish on it. The Windlass was used to beat on tires a good bit. It saw the most extensive jarring impacts, and never loosened up.

In terms of the tangs themselves, they fell into three categories. The "India sourced blades" had the thinnest, narrowest tangs--both the Cold Steel and the Windlass. The Windlass had the largest threaded portion of the tang, however, very thick and robust. The Valiant Armoury AT303s and the Hanwei side sword had tangs that were nearly identical (and they were identically threaded). Finally, the Hanwei/Tinker line had a massive thick chunk of tang.

While the Indian blades had the thinnest and narrowest tangs, neither was anything like a "rat tail" and I don't regard any of the blades here discussed to be unsafe for (at least light) cutting.

A final comment on the Windlass saber. While the peen was very light, I am convinced it was adequate for the job. This is so because the "peen block" (or nut) was threaded, and had a good 1/3" of grip. The peen basically just kept it from unscrewing, and the threads maintained a secure grip on the tang.

Hope this helps.